At reveille it was reported that shortly after midnight the mayor and
city council had surrendered the city to General Worth. They said that
Santa Anna had withdrawn his army into the country. General Worth
forwarded the delegates to General Scott at Tacubaya, and he had just
been directed to march his troops to the Alameda. The Quitman column
was to occupy the plaza and raise the flag.
This seemed hard, but General Quitman had been first to seize a gate,
and had lost heavily. Besides, with his Mohawks and Marines he had
guarded the rear, at San Augustine, through a long period, while other
troops were winning honors.
The First Division, the Voltigeurs and the Riley brigade were halted
in column of companies in the green square or Alameda. Now all the way
on to the plaza, three blocks, the broad street was crowded with the
Mexican citizens, jostling along the walks and thronging the balconies.
The front of many of the buildings flew the neutral flags of England,
France, Spain, Portugal, Italy.
At seven o’clock music was heard and cheering. The Quitman column
appeared in sight: the handsome General Quitman and bluff General
Twiggs, and staffs, with escort of cavalry, at its head; then in
serried ranks the Rifles, with the regimental flags of the First
Artillery, the Third Infantry, the New Yorkers, the Marines, and the
Ninth Infantry following at the fore of their commands. Sections of
the Drum and Steptoe batteries rumbled behind.
The drums of the Worth regiments rolled, the men cheered gallantly.
With measured tread the Quitman column passed on, its bands playing
“Hail, Columbia!,” “Washington’s March,” and “Yankee Doodle.” Presently
there was a still louder burst of cheers, and the united strains of the
“Star Spangled Banner.” From the flag pole of the national palace the
Stars and Stripes had broken out; raised, as was afterward learned,
by Captain Roberts of the Rifles. He had been foremost in the Quitman
storming columns up Chapultepec hill.
Lieutenant Beauregard, of the engineers, bandaged from a wound, dashed
from the plaza, evidently bearing dispatches. About eight o’clock the
clatter of hoofs sounded. The Dragoons were coming. Then――
“Huzzah! Huzzah! Huzzah! Huzzah for Old Fuss and Feathers!”
General Scott, plumed and girted and gloved, in full uniform complete,
towered at the front. Led by Colonel Harney and Major Sumner, the
dragoons, their mounted band in the advance, at a carry sabers, filled
the street from curb to curb. They, too, were spick and span.
“Hail to the Chief!” That was the tune being played. The general and
escort swept by at a rapid trot, while the bands and the field music
of the Worth column likewise played “Hail to the Chief.” The Mexican
spectators forgot themselves, and cheered and clapped. No one could
deny that the chief and his cavalry made a splendid sight.
“Column――forward――quick time――march!”
The Worth men might move in at last. The street was so blocked that the
end files of the companies were obliged to brush the people from the
way. In the plaza the Second Dragoons band was playing “Yankee Doodle.”
The plaza also was crowded. There seemed to be hundreds of blanketed,
dirty beggars under foot. The dragoons rode right and left, clearing
the plaza with the flats of their sabers, but careful to harm nobody.
“Column, halt!”
Just as General Worth was about to give orders a volley burst from the
top of a building; the balls pelted in, aimed at him and his staff; but
they passed over. Colonel Garland clapped his hand to his side, and in
Company B Lieutenant Sidney Smith sank limply.
As if the volley had been a signal other shots sounded; paving stones
rained down. It looked like a trap. Here were five thousand Americans,
almost the whole army, in the plaza and surrounded by buildings and two
hundred thousand people.
The orders were quick. In an instant Duncan’s battery and the Reno
howitzers galloped to the plaza corners; Steptoe’s and Drum’s and
Taylor’s guns were being unlimbered. Aides from General Scott were
spurring hither thither; skirmish squads were being told off, and
ordered to search the streets and buildings. The dragoons galloped. The
howitzers battered the building from which the first volley had issued.
Now all around the plaza there echoed the clatter of hoofs, the thud of
running feet, and the ringing reports of musket and rifle.
A number of leading Mexican citizens apologized to General Worth and
General Scott, and offered help to put down the insurrection. The
trouble-makers were two thousand convicts who had been set free by
Santa Anna.
The firing in the streets continued throughout the day, while the
reserves waited under arms. At night things had quieted somewhat. The
First Division bivouacked in the Alameda. After strong outposts had
been placed the men might talk again. What a two days, September 13 and
14, that had been! And this was the end of the campaign in the Halls of
Montezuma.
The Riley men, quartered with the First, could tell the news from
the Quitman column. They had been at Chapultepec, and upon the road
to the Belen gate. The casualties were heavy. Major Loring, of the
Rifles, had lost an arm. The Drum battery had been cut to pieces
at the gate――Captain Drum and First Lieutenant Benjamin killed.
Lieutenant-Colonel Baxter, commanding the New Yorkers, was dying;
Major Gladden, commanding the Palmettos, was wounded. General Shields’
wounded arm was in bad shape. General Pillow would recover; was in the
hospital at Chapultepec. The South Carolinans were holding the Belen
gate; the Second Pennsylvanians were garrisoning the fort inside.
Colonel Garland, it was said, would get well; but Lieutenant Smith was
dead.
Jerry looked at his own mess. Brave Scotty MacPheel was gone; so was
Henry Brewer――he had been shot down yesterday. Corporal Finerty bore an
honorable wound; Fifer O’Toole’s head was bandaged――a musket ball had
scraped it.
In taking Chapultepec and the city ten officers and one hundred and
twenty rank and file had been killed; sixty-eight officers and six
hundred and thirty-five rank and file had been wounded; twenty-nine
men were missing; total, eight hundred and sixty-two, of whom almost a
tenth were officers. The loss to the army since it had marched out of
Puebla was three hundred and eighty-three officers, two thousand, three
hundred and twenty rank and file. Subtracting the garrisons and rear
guards, Old Fuss and Feathers had marched into Mexico City with less
than six thousand out of his ten thousand with which he had left Puebla
six weeks before.
And according to estimates, in the same time the Mexicans had lost
more than seven thousand killed and wounded, thirty-seven hundred
prisoners including thirteen generals, some twenty flags, one hundred
and thirty-two pieces of artillery, and twenty thousand small arms.
So here the “gringo” army was.
Instead of permitting his men to pillage the city, General Scott levied
a money contribution upon it of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars,
for the support of the troops. Adjutant Mackall read to the First
Division, paraded to listen, the following orders:
HEADQUARTERS OF THE ARMY,
Mexico, Sept. 14, 1847.